SEMLEX

Semlex, an Ambitious Company With a Global Reach

Semlex was founded in 1992 by renowned entrepreneur Albert Karaziwan.
The company is headquartered in Brussels and takes its name from the Latin for “the meaning of the law”. It is first and foremost a family business and is not listed on the stock market.

Semlex’s objective is to develop increasingly more innovative biometric systems and to share them with as many people as possible. Over the years, this company has diversified to become a company with a worldwide reach. Today it is responsible for numerous developments that make it the world’s leader in new technologies and biometrics. Discover the journey of a company with many faces.

A Pioneering Company

How did a small Belgian family company become one of the world’s key players in the creation
of secure identity documents and biometric identification ?

It all goes back to 1992.Albert Karaziwan was an ambitious man with a passion for new technologies. He created Semlex, an independent Belgian company, in the city where he lived. He started it all from the observation that the world is evolving towards a constant need for security. Transportation and travel documents therefore had to be made perfectly reliable and their owner’s identity inviolable. From there was born the concept for this company.

What fully contributed to this company’s success is that it offered a comprehensive identification and authentication solution using biometric technology. It was also the very first company to provide this innovative technology to the people in the African continent, and is a pioneering force in its field. The proven, innovative technology found in the Biometric Network System (BNS) is attractive to increasingly more countries that do not yet benefit from this technology, enabling them to take an important step forward in identity and biometric technologies. This system is one of the Semlex Group’s many innovations and it is intended to help establish a census of the population using ingenious technical systems.

This system is able to manage a substantial amount of data, including different applications like travel and identity documents, the creation of a civil status, verifying identities and even interconnectivity with information tools from other sectors. This comprehensive solution is used to launch a central biometric identification system. Thus, thanks to the Biometric Network System, the authorities from many countries and their governments can provide official documents reliably and securely.

A Company Known Internationally

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Comprehensive solutions

Today the Semlex Group is known around the world for its technological innovations and its comprehensive solutions. This family company specializes in biometric identification solutions implementation and will be developing this technology in Europe, the Americas as well as in Africa.

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Quality

Semlex provides its customers with full access to databases designed using facial features and individual fingerprints, and since its inception has made remarkable advances in the field of new technologies, making it stand out from all the other companies in the sector.

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Flexibility

Flexible and adaptable to the countries’ economic situations, it is able to handle all production and design work by levying a commission on every official document produced. For these states, this represents a great opportunity to provide unfalsifiable documents to their people. This is in part the reason for the company’s sweeping success.

The Conquest of the African Market

Not long after it was created, Semlex entered the African market because it realized that this continent was like the “poor parent” unable to afford the traditional biometric techniques that are so very crucial in a society continually seeking greater security.

Its services also responded to the growing trend of identity fraud at the time, especially in the Ivory Coast. Considering these needs and applying its know-how in response, Semlex got involved and offered its services. This is how the Belgian company completed its first projects in Guinea-Bissau and in Gabon.

Following this in 2001, the company implemented the very first ID card secured with its holder’s biometric data in Chad. It then introduced the very first biometric passport in Madagascar in 2006.

Semlex produced Africa’s first ID1-size (credit card size) biometric card for the CEMAC. This card enables citizens to freely travel throughout the six member states of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad. Today, citizens in these countries benefit from advanced technology that is useful to them day after day, in particular when travelling as well as in their administrative procedures.

Major Projects

Today Semlex continues to pursue its ambitions in Africa. In fact, two ambitious projects are currently underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Comoros. The objective is to develop innovations in biometrics and identity security in partnership with the national governments of those states.

In Mozambique, Semlex provided a comprehensive, integrated solution (see the documentary about this called: “Une solution complète pour le Mozambique” (A comprehensive solution for Mozambique). This means that it handled the project from start to finish, from the manufacturing phase, to personalization, until the official documents were issued to the people. The objective here was to complete the company’s range of offerings and to provide an even more comprehensive service to its customers. This is why in 2014 it acquired its own printing company, so it could control the entire chain of production. The company is reliable and fully secured, and provides a high quality service that meets the strictest requirements.

Semlex is Dedicated to the Fight Against Fraud

This company developed its knowledge in the fight against identity fraud and to help resolve many dysfunctions, particularly in certain African countries. This, amongst other things, helped make this company the world leader in the field of biometric identification and analysis systems used by governments and national populations. This is also what enables the company to be a key player as a pioneer in biometric systems creation.

The fingerprint identification system is no longer a secret for this company that made the security of its services its trademark. This system combines the use of a smartcard with biometric technology to ensure that an identity cannot be stolen. It is therefore impossible to falsify, which provides even more security to all users around the world.

A Company With Multiple Values

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Vibrant

This future-facing company’s has many values. It is versatile and places heavy emphasis on the security of people and their governments. Its objective is to provide quick, secure access to these official documents in order to enable as many people as possible to travel and work freely. It provides visas, passports, work permits and driver’s licenses, all designed using biometric technology. The company’s values are compassion, its commitment to populations around the world as well to strive for security and reliability at all stages.

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Comprehensive services

This company’s values include a focus on providing consistently high-quality, comprehensive service. Semlex thereby provides services including authentication procedures, integrating security features in official documents, system design and installation, quality control during all phases of production, delivering fully secure documents, not to mention the training, technical assistance, providing customized, flexible financial plans and operational management.

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Community projects

Lastly, the company is particularly committed to improving citizens’ access to technologies to improve their well-being. In 2014, thanks to Semlex, the archipelago of Comoros was able to install a drinking water station accessible to the entire population. This “gift” significantly improved its citizens’ standard of living. This unveiling involved a ceremony that was held in the presence of influential people, including company founder Albert Karaziwan.

World-Renowned Know-How

This success is due primarily because of the ambition of its creator and CEO, Albert Karaziwan, as well as the teams that work day after day to provide high-end services.

As an indication of quality and reliability, Semlex now has many certifications, including ISO 14001 (2015 version) certification, as well as ISO 9001 certification, which are true gauges of security. Additionally, the company adopted its Semlex Quality Policy in 2017.

Lastly, to company implements biometric and electronic identification systems in compliance with the international standards established by many organizations.

Today Semlex is very well known in its sector and is a key player in biometric products manufacturing. This highly forward-thinking company has helped countries that previously lacked customized solutions to benefit from secure systems for their official documents.